


The Great Game: Press Start

by canolacrush



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Video Game, Gen, I throw Sherlock off a building more often than Steven Moffat, John is John, M/M, Moriarity is an evil wizard who works in a game shop, Pre-Slash, SUDDEN TONE SHIFTS, Sherlock is a video game character, Shh just go with it, You will never find me Mem, but mostly Gen, or in other words solving problems with plot holes and deus ex machinas, reverse the polarity of the reichenfeels!, solving problems with video game logic and magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 04:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/670201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canolacrush/pseuds/canolacrush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John killed Sherlock twelve times before he figured out how to make him jump to the next building.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Game: Press Start

John killed Sherlock twelve times before he figured out how to make him jump to the next building.  He wasn’t sure _how_ he could be rusty at operating the joystick on his Atari 2600 console after having played on it for hours on end in his childhood, but apparently he was.  John blamed the tremor in his hand.

 

Two days ago, John had been bored out of his mind.  Newly invalided home from Afghanistan, he had had nothing to do in his pathetic bedsit but stare at his empty, therapy-mandated blog and go for limping walks in the park.  Two days ago, he’d found himself wandering into a used game shop, simply because it was next on his circuit of touring the shops on his street.  He’d felt old almost instantly.  The shop seemed to have nothing but all the newer gadgets and games from last year on display, games he’d never played and had no intention of playing.  (Even if he’d wanted to play them, he knew he couldn’t.  If a game was anything more than an arcade-style 2-D, motion sickness would overtake him.  Not to mention, he’d probably have a row with inanimate objects—again—if he tried to play those games with all those buttons.)  A bunch of kids turned and stared at him, probably wondering if he was trying to buy a game for his son.  John drifted through the aisles, eyes glazing over at the selection of Xbox, Playstation, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Dreamcast, Gamecube, N64, and SNES games available.  He was steadily creeping toward the back of the shop, where virtually no one was lingering, but he was starting to recognise a few more of the games they had available, though the selection was few and far between.  He eyed a large bin of abandoned Nintendo Entertainment System games, and even a few stray Master System games lying haphazardly on the shelves.

 

But it was when John spotted the one lonely shoebox of Atari 2600 games that his eyes truly lit up.  He sifted through the cartridges, smiling at the familiar game titles: _Pac-Man_ (of course), _Space Invaders_ , _Asteroids_ , _Joust_ , _Adventure_... John had played all of them, at one point or another.  Except for one, which caught his eye primarily because he’d never heard of it before— _The Great Game_.  The cartridge had a simple design sticker: the name of the game on a black background, with the image of a magnifying glass beneath the game title.  As John held the cartridge in his hand, he felt a powerful curiosity overtake him.  He began to wonder where his old Atari was—he knew he had it somewhere, most likely in Harry’s basement, gathering dust.  He began to wonder if the old game system would still work.  Before he’d even finished _beginning_ to wonder all these things, John had walked to the register with the game in his hand.

 

The shop owner looked around John’s age, and he and John exchanged the ‘ah yes, you _too_ remember the good old days’ look.  John placed _The Great Game_ on the counter and slid it across to him.

 

The man picked up the cartridge and raised an eyebrow.  Suddenly, his mild-mannered demeanour shifted; the shop owner now looked at John with unconcealed disdain.  “You sure you want _this_ game...sir?” he asked.

 

John blinked, wondering what had brought on _that_ change.  Frowning, he replied, “Yeah, I imagine that’s why I brought it up here.”

 

The shop owner sighed and leaned on one elbow on the counter, fist under his chin.  He held the game in his other hand between two fingers.  “I don’t think you’d be able to play _this_ game.”

 

“I still have my Atari, I don’t see why n—”

 

“No,” the man cut in, glaring.  “That’s not what I mean.  Sir.  What I mean is that the game is above your level.”

 

Well that was just uncalled for.  “I could be wrong, but I think that’s none of your damn business,” John replied.  He spared a glance at the man’s nametag.  “ _Jim._ ”

 

Jim raised an eyebrow.  “You know nothing about this game, do you?  No, you don’t.  This game—” He tapped the cartridge with a finger.  “—is one of a kind.  There isn’t another one like it anywhere.  It’s too difficult for the a _verage_ player.  I can’t just let _anyone_ have this game.”

 

“I imagine you don’t have a lot of business, then, if you go around insulting your customers when they try to buy something.”  John slapped a credit card on the table.  “Are you going to sell me that game or not?”

 

Jim stared at him for a moment, his eyes unnervingly empty of feeling.  Suddenly, he straightened up with a smile that had far too many teeth in it.  “You know what, I think I will!”  He rang the price into the register.  “I was getting sick of that game.  Playing it over and over just becomes _boring_ after awhile.  May as well give it to a man who _can’t_ play it for a change.”  He swiped John’s card, and a receipt cranked out of the machine.  Before handing over the cartridge, Jim held the game near his lips and whispered, “ _Bye, sexy._ ”

 

John limped as fast as he could out of the shop once he had his game, because obviously the owner was fucking _crazy_.  Most likely bipolar, though John’s specialty wasn’t in psychiatrics.  Once he was a safe distance away on the pavement, John had looked at the cartridge one more time and had decided to pay a brief visit to Harry the next day to retrieve the Atari gathering dust in her basement.

 

The first miracle had been finding the Atari in amongst the hoards of boxes in the basement; the second miracle had been getting the system to work.  Currently, John was working on the third miracle: getting the stupid block of pixels called ‘Sherlock’ to jump to the rooftop of the next building.

 

“Come on come on come on... _Jesus Christ!_   _Why is this so hard?!_ ” John shouted at the screen.  As the level restarted, John perched the purple vaguely-man-shaped sprite on the edge of the building and tried to judge if there was anything he was missing that could be used to help Sherlock jump the vast distance across.  John couldn’t spot any obvious awnings or overhangs on the opposite side.  Sherlock was on his last life (out of a starting total of thirteen).  Not that it mattered much if John got a Game Over at this point, seeing as he was still at the start of level 1, but it would certainly put a dent in his pride as a former gamer.

 

Suddenly, the Inventory flashed up unbidden and scrolled down past a locked ‘Mystery Item’ to an unlocked ‘Magnifying Glass.’  John didn’t realize he had items in his Inventory already—it certainly was not helpful that the game didn’t come with any sort of instruction set.  He selected it.

 

Instantly, there was a ‘window’ on the opposite building that flashed on and off.  “Does that mean I aim for there?” John asked the screen.  Getting no answer, he took a running leap and aimed for the flashing window.  Sherlock went through it.

 

“Oh god, _finally_ ,” John muttered.  They were now in a room with various objects in it—keys, random dots that John guessed were health points or food, and even what looked like a body-sprite lying on the floor.  John collected all the things he could, then wondered what he was supposed to do about the body.  He tried the Magnifying Glass on it.

 

**YOU HAVE FOUND 1 CLUE: DEAD BODY.**

 

“So this is a detective game of some sort?  Would’ve been nice to know that at the start.”

 

John had Sherlock exit the room and explore the apartment complex, talking to other body-sprites around the area and gathering both hints (“Look in the basement”) and random statements (“It must be hard to be a detective”).  When he reached the door out into the street, there was what John guessed was a police car waiting outside.  Suddenly, a screen of boxes appeared, with the first line of boxes containing the ‘Clues’ that Sherlock had found and a second line of empty boxes underneath.  The second line had fewer boxes than the first line.  John puzzled over what it meant.  Randomly, he selected one of the Clue boxes, and an identical image of the Clue appeared in one of the empty boxes.

 

“Am I supposed to pick the correct clues or something?” John mumbled, picking some clues sporadically.  When all of the empty boxes had been filled, the screen suddenly went black.  One word appeared— **WRONG** —and, just like that, Sherlock was back on top of the blasted rooftop at the start of the level.

 

“ _You’ve got to be kidding me!_ ”  John threw down the joystick and glared at the screen.  “How am I supposed to play this game when it doesn’t give you any idea what you’re supposed to do?!”  Pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose, John turned off the game.  He decided to check for Internet forums that might know something about the game, just so he had a better idea of what he was supposed to be doing.

 

Except when he checked the Internet, there wasn’t a word about _The Great Game_ anywhere.  Not even a passing comment.  Eventually, John just sighed and tucked in for the night, deciding he’d give the game another go the next day.  There was no way in hell he’d just _give up_ on it, especially not after what that rude shop owner had said—he’d at least beat level one, if nothing else.  It’s not like he had any other plans tomorrow, aside from limping around the park again.

 

***

 

The dawn of the new day saw John Watson in a better mood, especially since he’d figured out how the Magnifying Glass worked.  Sherlock jumped to the other building with ease, he gathered the Clues and information from apartment residents, and eventually made it back out onto the street again.  John was confronted with the Clue Box screen once more.

 

This time he tried to be a bit more selective with his clues—John selected the original body, a pink and assumedly female body-sprite, and a circular object identified as a ring.  From what John had been able to gather throughout the level, the victim had committed suicide from a broken engagement.  Or at least, that’s what he hoped was the answer.  He also hoped there wasn’t some particular order the clues had to go in the boxes or something.  John waited.

 

The screen went black.

 

“ _Jesus Christ_.”

 

However, a different word appeared on the screen this time: **MERETRICIOUS**.

 

“Is that good?”  John asked.

 

The screen came back to life and told him he was now at Level 2: Adventure of the Friesland.  John supposed that meant he solved the last mystery all right.  He clicked to proceed, found that Sherlock was now standing on the deck of a boat (John guessed that’s where he was), and that Sherlock was being shot at by blocky henchmen (which was confirmed when Sherlock immediately died on being hit by a pixel-pellet).

 

“Damn it,” John muttered.  “Please tell me that we have a gun somewhere in our inventory.”

 

On restarting the level, John immediately directed Sherlock to run behind a block to serve as shelter, then checked the Inventory.  Sure enough, below the still-locked ‘Mystery Item,’ there was now a gun—John was pretty sure there wasn’t one before, but maybe it was a reward for solving the last level.

 

“Now we’re talking!”  John knew how to shoot bad guys.  That was definitely his department of expertise in any gaming scenario.  It wasn’t long before Sherlock made short work of the thugs on board, and John could direct him into the lower levels of the ship to start picking up Clues and health points.

 

“I think I’m getting the hang of this,” John said with a smile as Sherlock shot down a few more thugs that had emerged from behind shipping crates.

 

By the end of the day, John and Sherlock had solved two more mysteries (though John had to repeat both of them), and John was realising that he should have been in bed hours ago.  He almost considered trying one more level—surely, there wouldn’t be any harm in that?—but ultimately, his need for sleep won the battle, and he went to bed with 8-bit renditions of classical music playing in his head.

 

***

 

John met with his therapist for his weekly session.  She asked him what he’d been up to, and he decided to answer truthfully—that he’d gone into a used game shop recently and purchased an Atari game, got his old system back from his sister’s, and had been trying to play it.

 

“Good, John.  Good,” said his therapist, writing what he could see were the words ‘ _Monitor game activity for overly escapist tendencies_.’

 

“I’m not being escapist,” he told her.  “I just needed to do something different for a change.”

 

“I’m not saying you are escapist, John.  There’s nothing wrong with finding hobbies; it’s part of civilian life.  Just be careful that your hobbies don’t become obsessions and take over your responsibilities, is all.  I’m very proud of the progress you’re making.”

 

She then asked him if he’d talked to anyone that week, and John didn’t have a good answer to that.

 

***

 

On Level 5: Adventure of the Bishopgate Jewel Case, something happened that John could find no reasonable explanation for.  Midway through the level, when Sherlock had picked up a Skull, the game graphics suddenly...improved.  There was no other word for it.

 

The last four levels had had graphics somewhat similar to that of _Pitfall!_ —serviceable enough to distinguish what everything was, but simple.  On picking up the Skull, the screen had blacked out for two seconds, and then the quality had changed into that of a SNES game.  There were more details, the background of the museum Sherlock was in suddenly _looked_ like a museum rather than just a generic room with more stuff in it than usual, and the type print was vastly easier to read.  John could see that Sherlock was now more than just a purple man-shape: he had gained an actual face, curly-looking dark hair, a dramatic black coat, and actual limbs.

 

This level of detail shouldn’t be _possible_ on the Atari.

 

“What the hell,” John whispered, staring in awe.

 

Without warning, a larger image of Sherlock holding the Skull superimposed itself over the background and took up the screen.  A dialogue box appeared.

 

‘ **...I think I’ll call him Billy** ,’ the dialogue box wrote.

 

“ _Jesus_ ,” John said.  The Atari _definitely_ should not be able to do that—the superimposed Sherlock was even blinking every now and then as John left the dialogue box open.  “Okay...all right.”  John clicked the dialogue box off and tried moving sprite-Sherlock around; the controls still seemed to work.  “All right, this is weird.  But nothing’s _wrong_ , so that’s a good sign.  Hopefully.”

 

Well, it was all right until a gang of jewel thieves entered the museum, and then John was desperately trying to fight them off and was sufficiently distracted from the oddness of the change.  Soon he was swept up in the sheer excitement of the level, running Sherlock through the different museum rooms—the Egyptian room was particularly interesting—and even going into the police station and the London docks and at one point stopping at what was apparently Sherlock’s resting zone at 221B Baker Street, where he was greeted by an amiable Mrs. Hudson.

 

‘Billy’ had been placed on the trophy shelf above the mantel, and John amused himself by clicking on all the various objects in the rooms at Baker Street and having Sherlock’s larger dialogue image appear on the screen to tell him what they were.

 

‘ **My experiment on saliva coagulation...still needs more time**.’

 

‘ **Mrs. Hudson left me some biscuits.  Kind but unnecessary**.’

 

‘ **Upstairs.  There’s an empty room up there.  No point in going up**.’

 

‘ **My bed.  I’m not tired**.’

 

‘ **My violin.  It helps me to think sometimes when I play on it**.’

 

On this last item, an option box appeared asking ‘ **Play?: Yes/No.** ’  John selected ‘ **Yes** ,’ and he watched the smaller Sherlock sprite play on the violin for about fifteen seconds, an 8-bit rendition of something Bach-y coming through the speakers.

 

Then the dialogue box-Sherlock appeared and wrote, ‘ **That’s enough.  I have a case to solve**.’

 

“Oh, fine, you killjoy,” John replied.  Then John realized he was actively attempting to have a conversation with an imaginary character and rubbed his eyes.  “But maybe I should take a break first.”  He saved the game and got up from his one and only chair in the room, retrieved his cane, and went out for a walk, letting the bizarreness of the game’s metamorphosis settle into his mind as he made his way through St. James Park.

 

When he stopped to give his leg a break on a park bench, the thought that Baker Street was not too far away from the park crossed his mind— it was only a few Tube spots away, really.  For an insane moment, John considered going down there to see where Sherlock might have lived if he existed, but he immediately dismissed the idea.  Today had been crazy enough as it was—there was no need for him to give his therapist any more fodder for doubting his ability to adjust to normal civilian life.

 

***

 

Over the next few days and couple of levels, John was beginning to notice that the game had a few quirks to it—well, a few _more_ quirks.  More accurately, that _Sherlock_ had more quirks than he had before.  At first, John had thought they might be glitches, but as the cases went on and became increasingly more difficult (resulting in John having to repeat a few levels more than twice), John soon began to doubt the behaviours were just simple hiccups in the programming.

 

For instance, on Level 6: Adventure of the Tankerville Club Scandal, Sherlock had visited the morgue and talked with a character named Molly.  After gaining a Clue from her about the victim’s death, Molly’s dialogue box had popped up and asked, ‘ **I was wondering...do you want to get a coffee?** ’

 

When the option box popped up, John had tried to select ‘ **Yes**.’  Yet no matter how many times he clicked ‘ **Yes** ,’ the option box refused to change.  Eventually, he selected ‘ **No** ,’ and Sherlock’s dialogue box had finally appeared, replying, ‘ **Black, two sugars, thank you, Molly**.’

 

“For god’s sake, Sherlock, I _know_ you’re not that dense,” John had told the screen.

 

It happened later on in the level, too, at the actual Tankerville Club, when Sherlock encountered a dominatrix named Irene who asked him out to dinner.  The ‘ **Yes** ’ option refused to work.  Instead, Sherlock had replied, ‘ **I’m not hungry**.’

 

John raised an eyebrow.  “Women not your thing?  Fine.  We’ll just ignore any potential for Clues she might have, then.”

 

Another odd thing that started happening was that Sherlock started addressing him directly.  Well, not _exactly_ directly, but Sherlock was still acknowledging John’s presence in a way.  When John would click on an object or Clue that ultimately had no use in solving the mystery, Sherlock’s dialogue image would pop up and write, ‘ **For god’s sake, Player 1, what does _that_ have to do with anything?  We’re wasting time!** ’

 

Or when John tried to make Sherlock play the violin more than once at a time: ‘ **Player 1, if you wanted to just listen to music, you have your own devices, I’m sure.  The _game_ is on, not a concert!** ’

 

Or, John’s favourite, when he tried to make a low-energy Sherlock go to bed: ‘ **Player 1, you are not my mother.  I know when I need sleep**.’  (And, as John was finding out, Sherlock did _not_ in fact know when he needed to sleep—sometimes Sherlock would collapse in the middle of the street or a fight, sending him back to the start of the level and causing John no end of frustration.)

 

Though the cases were getting harder to solve and he had to repeat the levels countless times—even some of the beginning ones when Sherlock ran out of lives and John was given a ‘Game Over’—John was never bored.  It was loads more fun playing _The Great Game_ than it was to walk the same dull circuit every day.  In a way, solving cases with Sherlock’s occasionally snarky commentary was almost like interacting with another person.  Almost.  John still knew the difference between a real person and a game character, obviously.

 

***

 

At his next session, his therapist asked him if he’d contacted anyone recently—Harry, old friends, etc.  She asked him if he’d met anyone new.  He answered no.  She asked him if he was still playing his game.  He answered yes.

 

She asked him why he still wasn’t writing in his blog.  He told her that there wasn’t a point in him writing anything.  Nothing happened to him.  Not really.

 

She told him he could write about what he was doing in the game, perhaps.  He told her no one would be interested in reading a play-by-play of some bloke playing a game when anyone else could just _play_ the game for themselves.

 

She asked him what the game was like.

 

John answered, “He’s brilliant.”

 

“He?”

 

“It.  The game.  It’s fine.  It’s...good,” John replied, breaking eye contact with her.

 

His therapist raised an eyebrow, and he saw her scribble something that looked suspiciously like ‘ _Delusional_.’  He chose not to call her out on it this time.

 

***

 

John was about to start Level 9: Adventure of The Lighthouse Cormorant when he had to go ‘rescue’ Harry from the hospital after she’d sufficiently recovered from a bout of alcohol poisoning.  He spent four days with her, making sure her house was clean, that she could get herself back into a functional state, and that her designated AA buddy would be able to come and check on her for the rest of the week.  By the end of it all, John was frayed to the end of his wits, and he went home and immediately sat in front of his TV screen and turned the game on.

 

Sherlock was in the living room of 221B, where John had last left him, and John sent him to the violin.

 

After the first fifteen seconds, there came the inevitable response: ‘ **Player 1, we have more important things to do than play music!** ’

 

John tiredly clicked the ‘ **Play: Yes** ’ option over and over, trying to override the sprite’s protests.  “I know.  I know.  Can’t you just this once, though?” he murmured, rubbing at the dark circles under his eyes.

 

The joystick slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor, and John felt too exhausted to pick it up.

 

After a pause, Sherlock continued playing the violin, and the melody went on for several minutes.  An option box appeared on the screen: ‘ **Stop Playing?: Yes/No**.’  John ignored it.  He sat and listened until he fell asleep.

 

***

 

“ _Sherlock_ , for the love of—!  Come on, the answer is _the Sun!_   Accept the answer, damn it!” John protested, angrily mashing the button on his joystick.

 

Sherlock was in the middle of an observatory, trying to solve Level 10’s Mystery of the Missing Astronomer.  The key to unlocking the passcode for a secret room was apparently the answer to ‘What is the centre of the solar system?’, which was perhaps the easiest question John had ever encountered in the game so far.  Sherlock was refusing to let John select the right answer.

 

“It’s _not_ the Earth, you idiot, come on!  That’s why it’s called the _solar_ system!”

 

The enlarged dialogue image rolled his eyes.

 

“Look, do you want to solve this case or not?  _Trust me._ ”  John accentuated his statement with a particularly hard jab of the button.

 

Sherlock closed his eyes momentarily, and at last the answer was selected.  The door opened.

 

“See, was that so hard, you annoying bastard?” John said, grinning.

 

They were almost to the end.  John could sense it.  He knew he only had to replay the Missing Astronomer level one more time to solve it.  John glanced at his watch: 2:43 am.  He could solve it one more time before bed.  Just once more...

 

When John woke up, he had a vicious crick in his neck.  For some reason, his leg cramped in sympathy.  John hissed and blearily dragged himself to the bathroom for a dose of painkiller, then went into his tiny kitchen to get some tea brewing.  Coming back into the living/sleeping area, John realised that the game was still playing from when he’d fallen asleep—except the sound had died.  John set down the mug of tea and selected various objects on the screen, but none of the distinctive game sounds came out, nor did the usual classical background music.

 

Sherlock’s dialogue image appeared and glared.  ‘ **Are we done dawdling, Player 1?** ’

 

“Shit, sorry.  Didn’t mean to— _what the bloody hell am I apologising for_?” John reminded himself, wondering if his therapist was right all along.  He sighed and rubbed his eyes.  “Right, let’s just solve the last one then, shall we?  The Final Problem...”  John grinned and mentally shot the two-finger salute to the bastard at the game shop.  “...Up yours, Jim.”  John took a gulp of hot tea and settled in.

 

The mystery was an interesting one: four bodies, with no apparent violence or force inflicted on them.  John found the Clue of Poison Pills.  For some reason Sherlock kept deliberately being blocked by nothing in front of a random rubbish tip until John finally walked him into the bin.

 

**YOU HAVE FOUND 1 CLUE: PINK SUITCASE.**

 

“How did you even know to look for that?” John asked, amused.  The contents of the suitcase did not seem to yield much by way of Clues, so John had Sherlock search around the neighbourhood and talk to random people to see if they had any leads.  He talked to a police constable, he talked to a restaurant owner, he talked to a homeless person, and he talked to a cab driver.

 

‘ **Do you need a ride?** ’ the cab driver asked.

 

The option box came up, ‘ **Yes/No**.’  John had his eye on a few other people down the street that he still wanted to ask for information, but when he tried to answer ‘ **No** ,’ Sherlock refused to let him.

 

“Fine, we’ll do it your way,” John said, selecting ‘ **Yes**.’  Sherlock got in the cab, and one cheesy 90s-esque transition scene later, Sherlock and the cab driver were standing outside a tall building.

 

The cab driver was pointing a gun at Sherlock.

 

“You’ve _got_ to be joking,” John said.  “It’s been five minutes!  How are we _already_ at the final boss stage?  We haven’t even done the Clue Boxes!”

 

The cab driver’s dialogue image appeared.  ‘ **It took you long enough, Mr. Holmes.  Tell you what—if you call the police, I’ll come quietly, but I’ll never tell you how I did it.  But if you come with me, I’ll tell you how all those people died.  What’s your choice?** ’

 

The option box popped up: ‘ **Call police?  Yes/No**.’  John selected ‘ **Yes** ’ as firmly as he could, but somehow he suspected that it would not work.  It didn’t.  John wasn’t surprised, really, if only because the game would be a huge cop-out if it ended that simply; however, common sense had dictated that he needed to at least try it.  John toggled the joystick down and instead selected ‘ **No**.’

 

‘ **That’s what I thought** ,’ said the cab driver’s dialogue box.  ‘ **Come with me**.’

 

Another brief animated transition occurred, showing Sherlock and the cabbie walking into the building.  The screen panned up rapidly, the windows of the building blurring.  When the transition stopped, Sherlock and the cabbie were standing on the roof.  Two bottles that John recognised as Poison Pill Bottles were standing upright on the ground between them.

 

Once more, the cab driver’s dialogue image occupied the screen.  ‘ **Here’s how it works: there are two pills—one good pill, one bad pill.  You pick the bottle you want, and I’ll take the other one.  And together, we’ll take our medicine.  Of course, I know which is the good and bad pill.  So here’s the question...** ’  One of the pill bottles inexplicably moved closer to Sherlock.  ‘ **...Did I just give you the good pill, or the bad pill?** ’

 

“This is ridiculous,” John said.  “How is the final boss battle a game of chance?”

 

Apparently, Sherlock agreed with him, since his dialogue image appeared, looking miffed, and said, ‘ **This is _chance_.** ’

 

‘ **No, it’s _chess_.  You’re playing _me_ , not the numbers.  Which one did I give you?**’ the cabbie said.

 

‘ **Why should I bother?** ’ replied Sherlock, shrugging.

 

The cabbie pulled out the gun.  ‘ **I’ll shoot you**.’

 

“For Christ’s sakes, _you_ have a gun, Sherlock!” John said.

 

‘ **You can’t win the game unless you pick one** ,’ the cabbie added.

 

“Shit,” said John.  He stared at the two bottles and couldn’t decide how they were different in any way.  He didn’t even know anything about this final boss that could tell him whether the character would move the bad bottle closer or farther away—it probably didn’t even matter.  John toggled the joystick back and forth, highlighting the two bottles separately.

 

If John picked one of these and lost, he’d presumably have to start the whole level over—not that that would be difficult.  For some bizarre reason, this was the easiest level out of all of them.  Or there was also the possibility that he’d have to start right at the beginning again, which would be a pain, but doable (especially considering that John had by now memorised most of the levels down to the places where hidden stacks of cigarettes were stored).

 

Yet if John picked one of these and won the game, that would be it.  The thought was only now hitting him with the full force of its implications...  He felt a numb cord of dread squeeze around his mind—what would he do then?  This game had given him something to look forward to during the long, dull days.  But at the same time, he couldn’t go through this entire game without seeing it to the end.  He just _couldn’t._   It didn’t seem fair to leave it unfinished, especially after so long and so many repeated levels.

 

He didn’t even have the slightest idea of which bottle would lead to what conclusion.  “Do I really have to choose one?” John asked.  He waffled once more between the two bottles before closing his eyes, jostling the joystick, and randomly picking one.  It was the one nearer the cabbie.

Sherlock and the cabbie retrieved their respective pill cases and held them up to the sun, and in that moment, the graphics quality changed into 3-D.  The perspective veered from the sky-view and shifted into Sherlock’s POV.  John squeezed his eyes against the rapid, disorienting shift, his heart inexplicably pounding.  When he opened his eyes again, he saw Sherlock’s gloved hand—amazingly realistic, like the detail in one of those shooting games—pop the lid off the bottle and pull out a pill.

 

Something in John snapped.

 

“No no no no no,” he hissed, opening the inventory menu, selecting Sherlock’s gun, and shooting the cabbie straight in the chest.  The cabbie fell silently, the sound on the system still dead.  John breathed, waiting for what would happen next.

 

An announcement box appeared in the middle of the screen: **‘MYSTERY ITEM’ UNLOCKED.**

 

The game perspective panned out slowly, and John could see Sherlock again, this time in detail so clear and real that John could see his hair blowing in the breeze, the shadow he cast on the building, and the colour of his eyes—a strange, greyish hue that reflected the blue in the sky.  Sherlock reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a mobile phone, holding it to his ear.

 

**PLAYER 1, ANSWER PHONE?  YES/NO.**

 

“That’s impossible,” John said quietly.  “How did it...?”

 

He watched as Sherlock walked to the ledge of the building.

 

John selected ‘ **Yes**.’

 

There was a crackle as if static were coming through a bad radio signal, and John recognised it as the sound of wind.

 

“Hello, Player 1,” said Sherlock, in a soft baritone.

 

“Oh my god,” John whispered.

 

Sherlock offered the screen the smallest upturn of his lips.  “What is your name?”

 

John gulped and tried to come to grips with what he was hearing.  “John.”

 

“John,” Sherlock repeated.  “Thank you, John.”

 

John couldn’t help it—a brief, breathless giggle escaped him, his mind too shocked by the sheer _impossibility_ of it all to react any other way.  “What are you thanking _me_ for?  You did most of the work,” he asked, trying to calm himself down with steady breaths and convince himself he wasn’t going insane.

 

Sherlock’s eyes softened, and his shoulders drooped a little.  He looked tired.  “I’ve been trapped in this game for three years, John.  That mad magician at the game shop transmuted me into an Atari game when I tracked down his crime syndicate; he believed that no one would ever find me there, or have the patience to play the game to the end.  I’ve been his _plaything_ , John, along with a few unfortunate acquaintances of mine he captured as well.  Until you.  So thank you.”

 

Sherlock offered the screen the first full-blown smile John had ever seen from him, and it lit up his face into something breathtaking.  John felt like a small bird had fluttered into his chest, with wisps of down tickling at his ribs.

 

“You’re welcome,” John murmured.  “But...you’re still in there, aren’t you?  Trapped?”

 

“Not for long,” Sherlock replied, smile still full.  He blinked several times, and John thought he saw a glimmer of mist in Sherlock’s grey-blue eyes.  “Or at least, we shall soon find out.”

 

Unthinking, John got off the chair and approached the screen.  “What does that mean?” he asked tightly.  “Sherlock?”

 

There was no mistaking it now—a tear was rolling down Sherlock’s cheek, but even then, he was still smiling.  “Goodbye, John.”

 

Sherlock tossed the phone away from him and spread his arms.

 

“No, Sher—” John began, but it was too late—Sherlock was already falling.

 

John watched him fall and touched his hand to the screen, as if he could catch him.  The windows soared past Sherlock’s figure in a blur, his arms flapping, until suddenly he hit the ground.  But Sherlock did not just hit the ground—he exploded into it, his body erupting into a crashing wave of red and black pixels.  For half a minute, the pixels lingered on the screen like an afterimage, then slowly, they dissolved.  The screen lay empty.

 

John’s hand was glued to the monitor, his eyes staring blindly into it, trying to comprehend what had just happened.  Had he really just witnessed a man—a real, existent man, whom he’d gotten to know over the course of two weeks—throw himself off a building to escape what must have been a miserable life in the game?  Or had John just finally gone off his rocker and hallucinated the entire thing?  He couldn’t know for sure.  But either way, he felt like hell.

 

Slowly, he removed his hand from the screen.  As if his palm had been connected to some vital source of energy, John suddenly felt as though a cavern had been carved out of his torso, and he wondered, as he knew he would, ‘What do I do now?’  John glanced to the game cartridge and pulled it out, only to drop it immediately—it had burned out.  There was no going back to it.

 

John spent a few minutes collecting his thoughts and taking deep breaths before he stood up and reached for his cane.  He’d made a decision.  He was going to go to the open food market down the street.  Because if Sherlock—figment of his own delusion or otherwise—had taught him anything from that game, it was that he had to keep going.  He had to.  Right until the end.  Because maybe something better would be waiting for him there.

 

As John limped his way down the pavement, trying to connect with the general buzz of people socialising all around the market, the sounds stubbornly came to his ears in lacklustre mumbles.  He stopped in front of a cart of fruit with a thick awning overhead and stared at the oranges.  He moved to the next stall with fresh bread wrapped in plastic.  He moved to a third stall with a box of fish in ice and another awning overhead.  John knew there must be something in these stalls that he would want.  There had to be.  He wasn’t leaving the damn market until he found _something_ to brighten the day.

 

And then it hit him, quite literally.

 

Or rather, it fell on him.

 

John had been struck by a large object crashing into the fish stall’s awning, which ended up overturning the whole cart and spilling crushed ice and fish heads into the street.  From his position beneath the fallen awning, John heard a familiar baritone somewhere above him groan and say, “Why is it always the _fish stall?_ ”

 

John’s heart spluttered, and he scrambled out from under the blanket of plastic awning to the surface and grabbed hold of an arm.  His eyes connected with a pair of grey ones.  “Sherlock!”

 

Sherlock blinked, rubbing at an elbow that he’d landed on.  “...John?”

 

John was covered in fish and would have a nasty bruise on his back from landing on the pavement later, but he couldn’t stop the sudden grin.  “You bloody idiot!” he shouted cheerfully, grabbing hold of Sherlock’s other arm.  “You’re real after all!”

 

Sherlock returned the smile and chortled.  “An accurate assessment, John.”

 

They were laughing as they helped each other up and tried to keep their balance on top of the melting ice.

 

“Truthfully, I wasn’t sure it would work,” Sherlock admitted as he and John were trying to brush fishy bits off each other’s clothes.

 

John shook his head and swiped a fish eye out of Sherlock’s hair, his smile softening.  “Of course you’d just jump into it and hope it’d work.  Of course you’d bloody do that.  You’re Sherlock Holmes.”

 

Sherlock placed a hand on John’s shoulder and left it there.  “Well, if the game curse has worked out as it should, my flat in Baker Street should be restored, along with my landlady.  I’ll be needing a flatmate.”

 

John looked up at him in surprise.  “You’re asking me?”

 

“Of course, John, you’re just the man for the job.”  Sherlock’s hand drifted from John’s shoulder to his elbow and began to pull him towards the nearest cab.  “But at the moment, we’re off to see a wizard.  I think you know the one.”

 

John sent a conspiratorial smirk at his soon-to-be flatmate and let himself be pulled along.  “You know, I think I do, and I personally can’t wait to kick his arse.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I'll start by apologizing to the hardcore gamers out there: my experience with video games is rather limited, which is probably reflected in this fic. (I suffer from the same type of motion sickness I gave John, so I don't get to play many games, unfortunately.) However, what little I do know of gaming comes from my happy days playing on my Atari 2600, which was quite a long time ago; I was very young, so I don't completely understand how the mechanics of a game system works, so if anything sounds totally out of whack and implausible (aside from the obvious), then I only have my ignorance to blame.
> 
> Nevertheless, I hope you all enjoyed reading it!
> 
> A couple of things that I'll leave you with: normally, when I'm working on a fic, I like to find relevant music to play while writing. If it interests you, here's what I had in mind as the 8-bit "soundtrack" to The Great Game:
> 
> Title music: [[Chiptune] Sherlock](http://youtu.be/_wD4EWm0uho)  
> Level 1: [Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2"](http://youtu.be/Hdv_DihRu4k)  
> Level 2: [Saint-Saëns's "Aquarium" from Le Carnaval des Animaux](http://youtu.be/RvkeIFwyv1s)  
> Various other levels, in no particular order:  
> [Smetana's "Vltava (Moldau)"](http://youtu.be/rTFVlXSuv8M)  
> [Rossini's "La Gazza Ladra (Thieving Magpie)"](http://youtu.be/3cVyHv0qczc) (aka, Moriarty's dance number)  
> [Mozart's "Symphony No. 25"](http://youtu.be/W3xz3nvt0dg)  
> [Brahms's "Hungarian Dance No. 5"](http://youtu.be/yFTYrLLqLPY)  
> [Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain"](http://youtu.be/pqOkrHL8oGE) (the best thing ever!)  
> [Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata, 3rd Movement"](http://youtu.be/roHje14-K44)  
> [Dvorak's "Symphony No. 9" from The New World](http://youtu.be/4C6t5nVBnts)  
> [Beethoven's "5th Symphony, 1st Movement"](http://youtu.be/q9OsLj9lYVs)
> 
> and, for fun, [The Limousines' "Internet Killed the Video Star"](http://youtu.be/wtOlU_R8TFo), "Video Killed the Radio Star," [the "Mario Kart Love Song"](http://youtu.be/VDBpQVhCMb8), and inevitably, [Owl City's "When Can I See You Again?"](http://youtu.be/qM1YMeDsc-M).
> 
> There, I'm done talking your ears off. Now I just have to debate with myself about whether or not I should write a completely gratuitous PWP coda for this where I use an inordinate number of game puns and innuendos...


End file.
